What is this new Policy Shift?

Google recently announced that they are going to be eliminating a significant number of their privacy policies across their different services to make way for a single new privacy policy. This policy states that on March 1 of this year Google will begin integrating information from each of their different web services in order to develop a profile for each user. Google states that these profiles will be used to “tailor” search results and provide advertisements that each user will find more relevant. If you aren’t already worried about this policy, you should be.

Who Should Care and Why?

Just about everyone. Anyone who uses any form of Google web service (i.e. YouTube, Gmail, Google+, and Google’s search engine) and enjoys some level of privacy. The new policy becomes much more frightening in conjunction with the fourth privacy principle of the Google company philosophy:

People have different privacy concerns and needs. To best serve the full range of our users, Google strives to offer them meaningful and fine-grained choices over the use of their personal information. We believe personal information should not be held hostage and we are committed to building products that let users export their personal information to other services. We don’t sell users’ personal information.

This means that as of March 1, any online activity that you perform with some degree anonymity using one of Google’s services will be public knowledge that is associated with your name, your face, and your phone number. This should be particularly off-putting to android phone users whose real-time location, Google Wallet data, and much more will also be available.

The Take-Away Message?

So what can you do? Not much really. There’s no way to opt out of this debacle. If you plan on continuing to use Google’s web services, you’ll simply have to submit to these policies and the fact that all personal information you share or indicate with them being available to anyone who cares enough to know. Ultimately you’ll just need to reevaluate using Google’s services instead of their alternatives. Time to break out the pros & cons charts again!

Do you have your own social media network page? Of course you do. It has been the craze of the millennium and billions sign on to use these websites everyday. Facebook.com has been the most popular social media over the past few years; however, on June 28th, 2011 Google Inc. launched their version of social media called Google+. Immediately a buzz surrounded the social media globe as many suspected that with the entrance of corporate powerhouse (Google) into social networking that it would soon over take Facebook as the leader in Social Media. Now over six months in to their campaign, Google+ still sits behind in the rankings compared to #1 Facebook and I believe (along with others) that is exactly where Google+ will remain for a long time.

Google is entering into the social media game a little too late. This is not like when Facebook overtook MySpace as number 1. Why? Well when Facebook entered into the battle over number 1 with MySpace, Zuckerberg took information management to the next level which MySpace simply did not have the vision to do. The change Facebook made compared to MySpace was huge, but the proposed ideas Google+ are making are simply not “BIG” enough to smite Facebook. Google+ will never gain enough respect to surpass Facebook because Google Inc. will always be seen as the search engine corporation. In marketing terms (as taught by the great Dr. Powell) “It is better to be first than to be better.” This means that since Facebook was the first at enhancing and mastering information sharing they will always be the go-to network even if someone can better their ideas (much like people believe Google+ has done).

Still don’t believe me? Here’s a quote form the Kanzuru Blog called “Why Google+ Will Never Surpass Facebook – Sorry Google Shareholders, it is not the next Facebook Killer” or as seen on technorati.com  under the title “Why Google+ is not the Facebook it Thinks it is.” The article says, “People will always see Google as just that: Google. Google is merely about information and passing information from one person to the next, from one point to another. This is all about marketing 101 – branding.” The article continues by going on to say, “Google is an information or “search for information” brand, not a social networking brand. Google+ does not have all of the quirks that made Google, “Google” when it came into the business of transferring information. Google was in and of the same – it was it’s brand but it was also it’s action, and it’s essence.” Though Google is a huge corporation and undoubtedly has created some of best innovations of the 21st century, it will never become the number 1 social media network it wants to become. Mainly, because Facebook is just better.

Here’s the link to the Kanzuru Blog that I used my quotes from:

http://onekanzuru.wordpress.com/2011/07/18/why-google-will-never-surpass-facebook-sorry-google-shareholders-it-is-not-the-next-facebook-killer/

This website is based on the belief that anybody can and will post anything they want to on the internet. It is based on the fact that if people hear a story, real or fake they can post it and let people figure it out for themselves.

The posts are separated into different headings such as, most controversial, what’s hot, and top post. And you can search different posts with a huge bar at the top that includes topics such as funny, politics, gaming, worldnews, videos, and askreddit. The askreddit are posts where anybody can post any random question that comes to their mind i.e. “What song, if you hear it while driving, will inexplicably make you want to drive a billion miles per hour?” This resulted in 1690 comments in 6 hours. For these questions they have a panel of 22 ‘moderators’ who regulate different specifications such as no poll type questions and no yes or no questions either. You can also get banned by this board of moderators if you post any personal information and you can easily contact any one of these if one of your posts disappear or  you have any problems at all.

They also have a list of guidelines and tips for making a good post and what other kind of posts are going to get banned. It seems pretty clear but leaves a lot of room to post whatever any one wants to. All you need is a username and a password, email is optional.

So sign up and start posting.

In my previous Post Challenges of Starting a new website Part 1.  I talked about my new website My Weekend Trip Planner and how difficult it is to get your website discovered.  It is very difficult to get that initial traffic to the sight especially because SEO is really hurt by the fact that the site is so new. It is important to build the traffic to your site at least initially through other sources then just search engine.  These ways can be things like word or mouth or paid advertisements.  One of the ways I have found that works the best is social media.  Social media is extremely important especially for discovering a website.  You need to use social media to create a buzz for example on My Weekend Trip Planner when I launched the site I changed my status on Facebook to announce the launch of my new site.  I also tweeted it.  I received 30 visits from that in 4 hours.  This is perfect example of you can use social media to tell people about your site hopefully they will then tell their friends and the result can be viral.  This will then increase the likely hood people liking to you and before you know have a powerful website.

1. Squidoo has 1,800,000 user made different “lenses”.

2 They call their pages “lenses” because each is one person’s focus on something that their interested in, something that matters to them.

3. The entire company is only run by 6 people. The most famous creator is Seth Godin.

4. They are 1 of the top 100 most viewed companies in the United States.

5. They generate hundreds of thousands of dollars in annual royalties to charities and to their users.

6. Many of the users earn more than $1,000 a year from Squidoo. Some make $10,000. On average a user can make between $4 to $40. And they are many who just use Squidoo to give it to charity.

7. More than 1,000,000 people visit Squidoo everyday.

8. They have a tool called SquidU which is a page where you can get tips for making better lenses.

9. Squidoo is free to use.

10. Their main page has a list of 25 different broad topics including

• Food and Cooking
• Pets and Animals
• Travel and Places
• Weddings
• Parenting and Kids
• Holidays and Celebrations
• Education
• Fashion and  Beauty
• Arts and Design
• Entertainment and Media
• Culture and Society
• Music
• Sports and Recreation
• Cars
• Healthy Living
• Internet
• Relationships and Family
• Nonprofits
• Business and Work
• Computers and Electronics
• Home and Garden
• Hobbies, Games and Toys
• Video Games
• Books, Poetry, and Writing
• And a Squidoo Community

Linkedin.com is a website for individuals wanting to do a variety of different things. You can search for businesses or search for individuals and you can interact with them too through different features of the website. You can also find what jobs are available in the area of your choice along with the job description, experience needed, and contact information. Linkedin is also a globally used website where any and all businesses can put their information on the site available for anyone to see.

They also made it available to search for “old classmates” or any and all possibilities for this category.

Another option is posting questions on the site where professionals have the ability to reply answers to them. This helps businesses have a relationship to their consumers or employers to their employees.

This site seems like an interesting site to work with in the professional field.